“The above Joseph Sheldon private has been honored with the Badge of Merit for Six Years faithful Service...”

Joseph Sheldon receives an honorable discharge and the Badge of Merit, an award created by Washington intended for enlisted men and non-commissioned officers.

After the Comte de Grasse’s fleet arrives in Virginia, Washington requests troops to aid the combined militia and French force during the Siege of Yorktown. Washington and Virginia militia Brigadier General George Weedon had been corresponding for several weeks regarding the arrival of the Duc de Lauzun’s legion in Virginia, and Washington’s concerns that Weedon pay the Frenchman the respect appropriate to his rank.

Washington orders Virginia militia Brigadier General George Weedon to monitor the British and despite lacking supplies, prevent them from foraging the countryside when possible. The Commander in Chief then informs Weedon that French reinforcements are due to arrive and to show their commander the respect he deserves.

Washington responds to an address from the members of a prominent Philadelphia Lutheran congregation, likely written from New York City in the first two weeks of his Presidency. This exceptional letter shows that Washington believed the Revolution was guided by Providence, but also that human virtues would be necessary to build a successful nation. He offers hope of “a wise and efficient government” for the United States, and is confident that his new position will offer ample opportunity to encourage “the domestic and public virtues of Industry, Oeconomy, Patriotism, Philanthropy, and that Righteousness which exalteth a Nation.” Washington closes by thanking the ministers for their pledge to continue praying for him at the “Throne of Grace.”

“…in March last, I committed a matter to your care of which you took no notice till July…. Do not my dear Doctor tease your Mistress in this manner ”

In this highly personal letter, Washington offers a glimpse of the man behind the otherwise stolid image. After victory at Yorktown, Americans were awaiting news of a final peace treaty from Paris. Washington remained head of the Continental Army, and warily watched British General Sir Henry Clinton’s army in New York City. For all its friendly tone and nebulous phrases, Washington and McHenry are actually discussing the very serious business of funding and maintaining troop levels to discourage future British actions.

“Resolved that it is the Indispensable duty of the Inhabitants of this County … to prevent the sitting of the Respective court…the Inhabitants of this County will attend in person the next inferior court of common pleas and general session…properly Armed to repel any hostile force which may be employed…”

This document embodies one of the first instances of open rebellion against the Crown, and records a critical step in the formation of an independent government. Parts of it are written and signed by Major Nathaniel Sartell Prentice, who fought at the Battle of Lexington, less than a year later.

The manuscript starts with a copy of resolves issued on August 31, 1774, in response to one of the Intolerable Acts, by a convention of the Worcester County Committees of Correspondence. The Intolerable Act barred the commonwealth from holding town meetings. Delegates conclude that the act rendered the royal charter “null and void,” and they resolve that the various towns should take over the function of the British-run court system. They ask citizens to select their own town officials, choose representatives for a Provincial Convention, and take action to prevent the courts from sitting under the new system. One resolve specifies that citizens attend the upcoming court session “properly Armed to repel any hostile force” sent by the governor, and another votes to send “Letters by Post to other Committees” should an invasion appear imminent.

A fascinating set of ledger sheets retained by Nicholas Quackenbush. They note the date, the voucher number, “To Whom Delivered” and “By whose order” and then provide a long set of columns to account for almost every conceivable article, ranging from horses to pikes, a wide variety of tools, all types of lumber, as well as foodstuffs.

Fed up with “false hopes and temporary devices,” Washington calls for “an entire new plan.”

“We are without money … without provision & forage … without Cloathing - and … without men – In a word, we have lived upon expedients till we can live no longer, and it may truly be said that, the history of this War is a history of false hopes …”

“We must have a permanent force – not a force that is constantly fluctuating & sliding from under us as a pedestal of Ice would leave a Statue in a Summers day … Our Civil government must likewise undergo a reform – ample powers must be lodged in Congress as the head of the federal union, adequate to all the purposes of War. - Unless these things are done, our efforts will be in vain & only serve to accumulate expence – add to our perplexities, & dissatisfy the people without a prospect of obtaining the prize in view …”

Washington informs friend and fellow Virginian George Mason of Nathanael Greene’s appointment as commander of the southern army to replace Horatio Gates. Washington asks Mason, a prominent Virginia politician, to lend Greene whatever support he can in his new command. Washington then reports on the desperate state of the army, and offers a brief argument in favor of expanding Congressional power to prosecute the war. After the disastrous Battle of Camden, South Carolina, Greene’s appointment – and his successful leadership – finally allowed Washington to regain the offensive.

“after So wicked a Conspiracy…by certain Ingrates…declared Traitors to their Country it is the Opinion of this Town that they ought never to be Suffered to return.”

This document links two Boston patriots, Samuel Adams and Nathaniel Barber, over a contentious issue at war’s end – what to do with the Loyalists? The two-part manuscript comprises a 1783 Town of Boston resolve and a corresponding cover letter from the Boston Committee of Correspondence. The letter is signed by chairman Nathaniel Barber, a participant in the Boston Tea Party.

The Boston town resolve was created by a committee of three: Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Joseph Greenleaf. Though their names do not appear in the text, Adams biographers specifically credit him as the author. With the Revolutionary War over, and the definitive Treaty of Peace under final negotiation, Adams was lobbying hard against the return of unrepentant Tories. They were a threat to national security: “The British King cannot have more Subservient Tools and Emissaries amongst us for the purpose of Sowing the Seeds of Dissention in this infant Nation….” Barber’s accompanying letter echoes that sentiment.

The texts of both documents were subsequently printed as a two-leaved broadside and sent to towns throughout the state. It was also printed in newspapers in other states, who saw it as a model for their own consideration of Tory property issues.

This draft version was preserved in the papers of Luke Drury of Grafton. Ironically, Drury, a former captain of Minutemen would be imprisoned four years later during a home-grown Massachusetts conspiracy – Shays’ Rebellion.

This atlas, designed for British officers to use in the field, includes the “maps that the British high command regarded as providing essential topographical information in the most convenient form” (Schwartz & Ehrenberg).  The publishers claimed that their work would fit into an officer’s pocket, but it was more often carried in a holster. The present copy was bound in a more easily managed size with the maps cut, mounted on linen, and folded into a quarto-sized binding.

Washington calls on the militias of other states to help put down the uprising in Western Pennsylvania that continued despite conciliatory efforts by the government.  Washington assures the nation that “a small proportion of the United States shall [not] dictate to the whole union, and at the expense of those, who desire peace, indulge a desperate ambition….  I do moreover exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading directly or indirectly to those crimes, which produce this resort to military coercion : to check, in their respective spheres, the efforts of misguided or designing men to substitute their misrepresentation in the place of truth and their discontents in the place of stable government…”

John André proudly writes to his mother in England of his recent promotion to Adjutant-General of the British Army in North America, serving under Commander-in-Chief Sir Henry Clinton. André handled Clinton’s official correspondence and managed his network of spies in New York and New Jersey, which brought him into contact with disgruntled Continental Army General Benedict Arnold and ushered him towards the dreadful fate that awaited him later that month. This is one of his last letters to his family.

“Good fortune follows me, the Commander in chief has raised me to the first Office in the Army, if that of most confidence and least proffit is to be stiled so. I am Adjutant General … My satisfaction at my Appointment is renew’d at my acquainting you with it, as I am persuaded I am giving equal pleasure to what I have experienc’d myself … I do not derive great power from my situation but what openings it gives me to provide for, or oblige (in a good cause) I shall avail myself of at your nod.”

In a letter to his stepfather at Valley Forge, John Parke Custis reports on the Virginia legislature’s passage of bills to help raise troops, announces the arrival of a French frigate with uniforms and military supplies, and relays family greetings.

One of Washington’s earliest surveys, this elegant document records a plot of land for Ann Dunbarr, a pioneer settler of the Lost River Valley in the Appalachian Mountains of present-day West Virginia. Washington signs in his official capacity as surveyor of Culpeper County.

Chief Justice John Marshall’s magisterial biography of George Washington was originally a five-volume set. This 1840 publication, revised and issued in two volumes, also includes the 1832 companion atlas of maps relating to the Revolutionary War.